Lateral plastic collapse of sandwich tubes with metal foam core

This paper is concerned with the lateral crushing behaviour of short sandwich tubes, which consist of two concentric aluminium tubes of different diameters filled with aluminium foam. Experimental results and corresponding analytical models are presented. Aluminium sandwich tubes 50 mm long and of different values of diameter to thickness ratios were laterally crushed using an MTS machine at a displacement rate of 2 mm/min. Two bonding cases between the foam and monolithic component tubes, i.e. fully bonded and bonding free, were employed for all the configurations. Load–displacement curves were obtained. Deformation mechanisms were observed and three different crushing patterns have been identified. The experiments reveal that the bonding between the tubes and core for sandwich tubes played a different role in the three crushing patterns. Analytical models using rigid, perfectly plastic theory have been developed, which agree well with the corresponding experimental results.